Bond, James Bond

With the release of the new movie a few days away in the Czech Republic and a few weeks away in America there is Bond excitement all around. The Bond marketing strategy is probably one of the most incredible forces in entertainment. In the past five or so years, they have managed to make Christmas into a week long Bond-fest with the "007 days of Christmas." Every time they come out with a new movie, the entire collection of bond movies is put into a new box set, and they sell! The temptation is overwhelming, even though I have every single bond film on DVD, a little part of me cant help but want the shiny, neat new box set that even includes the very last film to come out. Now with Blue-Ray becoming the next media standard, they have started releasing Blue-Ray volumes of three movies at slightly less than sixty dollars. But the marketing genius does not stop there, they have there product placements of high end luxury goods. In Paris, the Omega watch store has a huge banner of Daniel Craig behind the showcase. In Prague the Sony Ericsson store has the Quantum of Solace logo with a conversation quoted in Czech, but there is still the unmistakable, "Bond, James Bond." Brand consistency is a key, "Quantum of Solace" is one of the only movie posters that I have scene that is the same in every country, this is mostly due to the 007 that diagonally lines up in the movie poster. Swatch has recently teamed up with Bond for a brilliant series of Bond villain watches. There are twenty-two in total, one for each movie, and they hit the full range of Swatch watches, from the plastic, glow in the dark "Live and Let Die" shamen watch to the Folex, gold plated "Gold Finger" watch. One of my personal favorites is the "Thunderball" watch which was also one of my favorite Bond movies growing up. The Bond movies also have a unique tie into pop culture through their theme songs. They usually feature some of the most popular artists of the time, for example, Duran Duran in the eighties and for "The Quantum of Solace" Jack White and Alicia Keys perform the first Bond Duet. I'm only scratching the surface of the marketing behemoth that is Bond, but I bet the strategies will get more creative and more elaborate with each new movie that comes out.